The present invention relates generally to the presentation, selection and retrieval of samples of wall-coverings, such as wallpaper. However, the teachings of the present invention can be extended to cover the storage and retrieval of any design provided on a fabric or similar backing.
Presently, the retailing of wallcoverings (wallpapers, borders, fabrics, etc.) is based upon customers searching through wallcovering books provided at a central location, such as a retail outlet, the books containing samples of wallcoverings. Often, this searching occurs within a dismal retail environment, where the store layout, storage and display of the wallcovering books suffers from the same neglect and shortcomings as the wallcovering books themselves.
Each central location is provided with approximately 200 to over 1,000 books, with each book including from 30 to over 100 samples. A specialized wallcovering store having a competitive selection of books would contain approximately 70,000 wallcovering samples. Stores claiming over 1,000 books would have over 100,000 wallcovering samples. These assortments are continually changed as old books are discontinued and new books added.
The books themselves are supplied by the various wallcovering manufacturers and distributors. Each vendor tends to include patterns in each book based on a general theme and/or style. This loose unstructured grouping of patterns would often mean that the customer would have to at least peruse, if not examine, each book.
The customer's task of reviewing each of the store's assortment of patterns may be somewhat facilitated by a knowledgeable salesperson and, by either, excluding or only including the books designed primarily for children's rooms and/or other marginal books. However, in practice, since each store does not include a comprehensive collection of wallcovering books, the prudent customer would be forced to visit many stores and examine many books before selecting a particular wallcovering.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,931,929, issued to Sherman, attempts to solve the problem of forcing an individual to search through many books of wallcoverings before a final selection can be made. This patent is directed to a process for the identification, description and display, on a video monitor, of design components, such as interior decoration products, selected by inputting desired component characteristics to a digital computer. However, while a highly trained decorator may be able to make a final selection of a wallcovering based upon a video image of the wallcovering, most retail customers would not be able to make such a decision. Rather, most customers would be better served by the opportunity to view and touch an actual sample of the wallcovering and perhaps borrow the sample to review in their home. This is important, since presently, most customers would, if possible, borrow a number of books from the retail store so that they can judge how a particular pattern would match with the actual decor of the house of a particular room. Even if the customer is interested in only one wallcovering from a particular book, they are forced to borrow the entire book to make such an assessment.
Additionally, the patent to Sherman indicates that color can be one of the desired component characteristics which can be relayed to the digital computer. Although this is the case, the treatment of color by Sherman is based on a single most dominant color, and up to five sub-dominant color references for each wallcovering. This attempt to establish a dominant color indicates a fundamental failure in the understanding of the use of color in the design of the wallcovering art. Furthermore, Sherman uses a machine-readable color input means which indicates that the colors are digitized quantities of hue, chroma and value so that each color falls within a predetermined block of color coordinates. The use of a color analyzer as part of the process to produce a color match to a required color is an enhancement when the product's ability to match the desired color has an effective equivalent color spectrum, such as when one is matching paints. However, in the case of ready-made wallcoverings, this scenario would prove to be ineffective. For example, if we were to limit the technically possible number of background colors to a fraction of the possible range of colors, e.g. 1,000, and then do the same for the foreground color, and select from among 40 possible motifs and among five possible motif styles and five possible motif patterns, we would require an assortment of approximately 1 billion patterns to ensure at least one match for every possible combination. Even if we were to limit the number of colors to 100, we would require an assortment of approximately 10 million patterns. This should be contrasted to the typically well stocked store which provides approximately 100,000 patterns.
Therefore, based upon the foregoing, a new method and system for choosing wallcoverings or other fabrics containing a particular pattern thereon should be developed and implemented.